Lurlene McDaniel

            LurleneMcDaniel is an author of teenage novels having to do with life. She draws her inspiration for her books from her son who was diagnosed with diabetes when he was three. Usually, her books have to do with sickness or death in some way and how the people around them deal with the heartache of losing a loved one. The books that I have read of hers so far is Heart to Heart, Always and Forever, and Breathless and I enjoyed all three of these books.

             The first book I ever read by Lurlene McDaniel was called Heart to Heart and it was suggested by my sister who had just grabbed a random book in the library. Without going into too much summary of the book; it’s basically about how a young girl dies at a young age, who just happened to be an organ donor, and how a teenage girl Arabeth St. Clair receives it. The book is very detailed in the emotional aspects of Arabeth and Kassey of their life and how they both have a connection to the teenage girl that who was an organ donor, Elowyn. This book is very well written and gets the reader to draw a connection to the characters in the story. The title of the book really couldn’t explain the story any better than those three words; because of the connection Arabeth and Elowyn share with each other. This is one book that is very emotional and teenager girls tend to like, so because of this one book is a reason enough to read some of Lurlene McDaniel’s books.

            The second book that I read by Lurlene McDaniel was called Always and Forever; which is actually two books in one. This one is about how a girl comes to the acceptance of death. The character in the book Melissa Austin receives a diagnoses concerning her health and the whole book is about how she and her family come into accepting the diagnoses; having peace with it. One reason I started reading this book was because I wanted to know why there was a hot air balloon on the cover of the book; which gets explained through the book of Melissa’s wanting to go on a hot air balloon. This book was almost as good as Heart to Heart, and both of them can be characterized in the same subject of acceptance and emotional ties. So two books I read were both an eye opener in my opinion; so that’s a reason to read a few of Lurlene McDaniel’s books.

            The last book I read by Lurlene McDaniel’s was called Breathless which the reason it was called that was the story has to do with a champion diver named Travis. The book is like the other two books I read by her because Travis ends up going to the hospital because he thought he broke his leg, but then he gets diagnosed with a rare form of cancer where they have to amputate his leg to save him. The whole story centers on the controversy between personal choice and of living life. This book was extremely sad compared to the other two books I thought because of Travis’s desire for diving and of accepting of what he think he must do. Thought this book was sadder, it brought up a good point about life, which makes people think about things like life that aren’t always thought about, a great reason to read Lurlene McDaniel’s books.

            Out of the three books I read all of them have to do with the quality of life, acceptance, and sadly death, but the author brings up a lot of important points and emotional aspects to keep the reader intrigued and to keep reading her other books as well. 

The Inheritance Cycle

So I don’t know how many people have read the book called Eragon? Well, anyway I tried reading the book when I was in third grade, didn’t turn out too well, I could barely get past the first chapter without asking my older brother what a word meant. The series called the Inheritance Cycle has four books to it. The first book is called Eragon, the second called Eldest, the third called Brisinger, and the fourth called Inheritance.

Well, back to my story of my experience with the books…I tried reading it failed at it, so I watched the movie instead. Now about back in 8^th grade I decided I was going to try to read the series again, so I borrowed the book from my brother and then I couldn’t put Eragon down, it was such an incredible book. It seriously was so well-written even better than the books by Terry Goodkind. Only thing bad is each page took awhile to read and even then there was a completely different language in the books that you had to go to the back of the book to find out what some elfish word or dwarf word meant. But I quickly read the book and let me say it is absolutely nothing like the movie that came out when I was in like 2^nd grade, it has a different story line, Brom was completely different in the movie than I would have imagined him. Overall, the movie had a lot of criticism and only the first books, Eragon, was released as a movie. I thought the first book was amazing that Christopher Paolini has such an imagination; he is definitely a guy that was meant to write books.

Now the second book it took me longer to read. Each page took me like two minutes to read, that’s why it took me so long, I’m usually a fast reader, but damn that book had so many dwarf and elf words and a huge span of vocabulary that I just stopped reading it then finally came back to it when I wanted to avoid doing Ap Biology homework. I did like the book, it’s not like it’s a bad book or anything, it just takes time to read and I just didn’t see it as worth it to spend that much time on a book, but I did eventually finish it and thought it was just as brilliant as the first book.

The third book, I don’t even remember if I started it at all. All I know is I borrowed it from my older brother and have had it on my book shelf for over a year thinking I’ll read it eventually, but it’s about 800 pages and I’m not that big of a reader anymore. But I’ve heard great things about this third book and the fourth book as well.

So if you want a hard read and you like fantasy books this is a series to read. Because I know some people can actually finish the series unlike me; maybe I’ll get to it someday, but I definitely can at least recommend that the first book and second book are brilliant. 

The Fast and the Furious

The Fast and the Furious movies have been coming out since 2001 and now there is a total of six movies already out. The Fast and the Furious are some of my favorite movies because it includes a ton of action and has very interesting characters in the movies.

Out of all of the movies I didn’t really like Tokyo Drift because it was more of a movie that didn’t tie up with the first two movies (which later does tie up into the later series), but still it really bothered me and I was sad that characters O’Conner and Toretto weren’t in it at all (expect for the very ending, but shouldn’t even count.) So basically if you want to watch the series I suggest watching this movie after the 6^th one, it will make a lot more sense.

I think out of all the movies my favorite was the 6^th Fast and the Furious just because they had so much action going on, and at the beginning of the movie they had a very catchy song that summarized what had happened in the other movies. Though, this movie might annoy some people because it has less racing in it and that’s a lot of what the Fast and the Furious movies are about.

One suggestion to anyone who hasn’t watched the series and plans on doing so, watch the credits because usually they have something that is important for the next movie on it the credits. But other than that I think that definitely guys that love drag racing, cars, and action will love this series. Though girls might not as much (totally not trying to discriminate), but it’s definitely a fun and interesting series.

The actors and actresses in the movie are really good actors and actresses too. One of them being Vin Diesel who usually is in a lot of action or war movies I’ve noticed and is in one of my all-time favorite movies called the Pacifier. The other actor that I like is Dwayne Johnson and there are so many movies that he’s in that I like (two of the m being Disney movies I believe) that it’s interesting to watch movies he’s in. The other actor that I liked especially in these movies was Paul Walker; he made the whole series interesting, though he has passed, I think the movies will not be the same without him if they decide to make the 7^th movie. Basically, I found the whole cast funny and they did a good job in their roles.

So if you’re bored and happen to have about three hours to spare watch the first movie if you haven’t done so, it’s interesting and has a lot of action and racing in it. Just my suggestion to watch it, because I really liked the whole series. 

Books

      Books are better than movies. There are so many choices between books and movies; movies are based upon books, but which one is better than the other? I believe that books are better than movies because it’s at your own pace, reading is proven to help learning, and lastly because reading is more detailed.

            The differences between books and movies is that one is made by an author the other is produced by a director. Now with movies it’s usually about a two hour movie; while with books reading can take way longer depending how long the book is and how fast of a reader you are. The reason I prefer reading is because I get to read when I want, with movies it’s more difficult to stop in the middle of a movie because it seems like there is never a stopping point and since books occur in chapters, it’s easier to stop at a certain spot. Also if you get interrupted it’s easy to just stop and put the book down where with movies you have to try to find the remote or get up to go pause the movie from missing parts of it. Another thing about books is its quite easy to back and read the line if you didn’t really understand the meaning of it (or go look up the definition in the dictionary); whereas movies it’s more of a faster pace and easier to miss parts of it. Books can be read at YOUR pace; which is important to be able to understand what’s going on.

            Reading is proved to help with learning. Reading helps with vocabulary which in trun helps with speaking and increasing your vocabulary skills. Movies usually go by pretty fast and scripts are made ahead of time for the actors or actresses where a lot of parts have to be cut out from the book. Not only is reading good for vocabulary use, but it helps with understanding new concepts as well with the non-fiction proportion of books (could be fictional as well). Now with movies it’s usually easier to have everything summarized and more simple to watch, but books are very detailed whereas on a show they cannot because of the certain amount of time they get to explain a concept or plot.

            Lastly, books are more detailed than movies. Usually, movies have to cut out parts that the books contain. Also books describe the sense for you of everything that is occurring while movies have already done it for you; with my own experiences I’ve noticed that if a character in the books is blonde and you want them to be brunette it’s quite easy to change that in your head, while in the movie your just stuck with whoever the actor or actress is playing the role. By having more details it paints a better picture in your head as to what is taking place. 

Daughters of the Moon series

            Daughters of the Moon by Lynne Ewing are a book series about witches or something like that. Basically, the main characters can do stuff that ordinary girls can’t like Serena reads minds, Jimena has premonitions, Vanessa can become invisible, and Catty can travel back in time.

            Now I’m completely fuzzy on what happened and what not, like I can barely remember what the ending to series was, but the series is composed of thirteen books and each one focuses on one of the girls being Catty, Jimena, Vanessa, and Serena mostly, I recall there being like a few books where I believe it focuses upon some other people, but all is about the same story that all ends up together in the end.

            I definitely recommend this book to high school females. I really enjoyed it, and would go back to reading each book, but I only own the first three books. Now these books are pretty easy read with each book being about 300 pages each, so not too hard of a read. I read a book each night and finished all of the books just in about thirteen days.

            These series is really interesting and the last book was amazing when they finally pieced everything together into that last book and it just kind of all unfolded what happens to all of the girls in the series. I think some of it was a bit depressing, but I don’t remember why…Anyway, I do recommend this series; it’s a nice easy read and is a very enjoyable book about the supernatural. So read the first book, you just might get attached if you like supernatural books. And the character Staton is pretty interesting to follow up on what happens to him. The characters are easily relatable and I just applause this series from what I can remember from it, that’s all. 

Fallen series

            So in the past month I decided to re-read a series I read in like 7^th grade and it was like one of my favorite series and I thought it was so spectacular. This series was called Fallen by Lauren Kate. The series has four books in it.

            The first book is called just Fallen and I was amazed by this love story, I guess I was in the phase in middle where I just absolutely loved the whole tragic love story. Now I finally decided to reread the series because I haven’t read the fourth book and I forget exactly what happened in each book, so I re-read the books. And I came to the realization that Fallen isn’t really all that great. I mean yeah, there’s an interesting story I suppose, but there isn’t anything really special about it in regards to the way it is written or vocabulary or anything. It honestly seems like any other love story going on in my opinion.

            Now the second book is called Torment and it gets a bit more interesting; where it kind of seems to steer off a bit from the whole romance going on. But it is still an eh book overall. The last part of the book is extremely interesting, if anything I find this book very humorous. Now the third book, Passion, I actually enjoyed over the first and the second more because it’s like a history lesson almost. Obviously, the author Lauren Kate had to research a bit to get the time periods right and what the settings would look like, so I congratulate her on that. I liked this book over the other two just because a lot more was happening and I just found it easier to stay with it. I especially liked how she wrote a chapter from Luce’s perspective and then went to Daniel’s.

            Now I can’t say anything about the fourth one, I haven’t even read it once because after I was done reading Passion I thought the story had gotten really screwed up and I just refused to read the next book in the series. But as I’m writing this blog post, I am going to start the book called Rapture probably within the next two weeks.

            Overall, this series is probably for middle schoolers, the level that it’s written at and the story in general just seems like it would appeal more to younger readers, yes even younger than high schoolers. But to any middle schoolers that are girls you probably will like this series if you like tragic romance stories. To the high schoolers, you could try it, but it might annoy you as the way it’s written. 

The Sword of Truth series

            One of my favorite book series is called the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Okay, I’m over exaggerating a bit because I haven’t actually read the full series yet, I am on book number five out of fifteen of the books. The series is quite confusing actually; in regards to how the order of the series even goes.

            The first book I read was called Wizard’s First Rule and I believe it is the first book in the series together, but written later are some prequels to the first book. The first book is really good, the reason I started reading this series was because first off my older brother and sister highly recommended it to me, and since my sister owes basically all the books, it was quite easy to get a hold of the books. The first book is definitely the best book out of the four that I’ve read so far, but usually the first books are the best. Terry Goodkind uses amazing vocabulary like I seriously had my phone next to me while reading so I could understand some of the words used, so if you’re looking for a rather difficult book this is a good start. Another thing that makes this book really awesome is because while being a rather difficult book; it’s also a really amazing story.

            The series is complete fiction, it’s about a wizard, a confessor, and just about everything fantasy-like put into one book series. Now this series would seem like it’s more of a guy’s series because of all the fighting, war, and strategy that takes place, but there’s also some romance going on in the book between the two main characters Kahlan and Richard (but there love is forbidden), but it’s a rather interesting series.

            The second book is called Stone of Tears, I found this book to be as good as the first. This is also the longest book in the whole series I think there is over 1,000 pages; a lot of events take place and a lot happens in this book. Now the third book is called Blood of the Fold, basically this book is completely about war and fighting the whole entire book. I didn’t think it was too bad, most I got to reading it I couldn’t stop reading.

Now the fourth book in the series is called Temple of the Winds and it takes more pages to get entirely intrigued in the book to the point where you can’t stop reading in my opinion. Lastly, on to the book I’m currently reading; I’m told by my sister and brother that this book is rather boring and being on about page 200, I have to agree. Compared to the other books this one less happens in it, and it goes off of characters not familiar in the series, these are the parts where I keep stopping and have to force myself to read through, but according to my siblings it becomes rather important later.

            My blogging is focused upon movies and books, but I just want to mention that there is a show called Legend of the Seeker that aired on television a while ago that is based upon this series. Based is the key word here, because I have watched all the episodes in the show (44 episodes, in two seasons) and it might have the same outline and character names, but completely different events happen; which might infuriate readers of the Sword of Truth series.

            Overall, this is my opinion on the series so far. It seriously is the best series ever, and is rather difficult which makes it all that much more fun to read (especially if you need a difficult book to read for school.) So read the first 200 pages of Wizard’s First Rule and you might be surprised that the book is extremely addicting. 

Why I don't like romantic movies

             Why romance movies are the worst movies and ever. Now I’m going to be a complete pessimist in this article, just a forewarning. So the reason I don’t like romantic movies anymore is because they are so predictable. When is there actually a romantic movie where the girl or the guy ends up dying in the end? (Romeo and Juliet anyone?)

Besides that, there really isn’t any movie where a depressing ending happens. I think I can maybe think of a few movies where the movie is considered a romantic movie, but has a sad movie like the Titanic and Romeo and Juliet, but honestly those are the only two I can think of. Why must society always make happy endings? The reality is that happy ending don’t always happen. All society is doing by making a happy ending is brainwashing little girls minds that maybe someday the will find a prince charming and it will be all love at first sight.

But life isn’t like a movie or even a book. Now I give credit to some books because I’ve noticed that some books actually have a more realistic ending compared to the movies. So why do producers change the ending of the book to make it a different ending? Well, simply because no one likes a sad ending except for me apparently.

            Romance movies are just so predictable, that’s my main reason for not really liking them anymore. So maybe other people can deal with the same endings over and over again, but I’ve gotten to the point where I just can’t really make myself watch any romantic movies anymore. I’ll take the action movies over romance any day now.

            About the only reason I usually watch romantic movies now is because of the actor or actress in the movie, which usually if the person is attractive makes you want to watch the movie even more. So yeah, those are my reasons for not really caring for romantic movies anymore.

            I think that the directors should have more realistic endings and not make little girls believe in something that might not happen to them. So in this sense I don’t like romantic movies. But if I have to pick my favorite romantic movie it will probably be something that was based upon a novel by Nicholas Sparks because the ending to his books seem more realistic and I think they are some of the most adorable and cute movies and books. 

The Hobbit the Desolation of Smaug

            Another movie that is worth seeing in the theaters (and paying the $9.25 to go see the one movie) is the Hobbit the Desolation of Smaug. I can’t put into words how much I loved this movie. This movie was definitely one of the top movies of 2013 and had fans excited to go see another Lord of Rings prequel. The Hobbit movies compared to Lord of the Rings were better in terms of detail and clarity of everything because everything looked pretty sweet.

            The top reason I suggest guys to see this movie (yes, guys because apparently a lot of girls find Lord of the Rings boring) is because of the clarity and detail. Let me tell you the dragon in the movie looked spectacular and had a cool voice that was all deep and everything. The picture of the movie was just amazing. Also another reason is because Orlando Bloom is in it as Lleglas and he’s just a great actor (he’s in the Pirates of the Caribbean.) So there are two reasons why guys should see this movie.

            Now I now girls don’t usually find these movies intriguing, but there is a bit of romance in the movie that could appeal to the girls in the movie, and besides it’s just a great action and adventure movie. I will say that the second Hobbit movie didn’t seem as funny as the first or any of the Lord of the Rings movies. My reasoning for maybe the girls will like it to be I’m a girl…And I love the movies. Though some people refer to these movies as nerdy, they really aren’t, they are adventure and action movies with a lot of fighting.

            Now there were two reasons you might not like this movie. The first being while the orcs and the dwarfs are fighting while trying to get away from the elves a barrel gets thrown with a guy in it and knocked down a lot of orcs and the dwarf in the barrel stayed in the barrel, which is impossible. The second thing in the movie that could annoy you is at the very end of the movie gold is all in one solid form for about 10 seconds and then suddenly it all melts and attacks the dragon. Those two things about the movie annoyed me, but other than that it was a great action movie.

            My argument for seeing this movie is it’s a great action movie and it was one of the best movies of the year, so why not go see it? I think that this movie will appeal mostly to guys, but hey if you’re a girl you can give it a chance, though there is a bunch of action in the movie, beware. 

Frozen

            Frozen is a movie worth seeing. Though it is an animated Disney movie it is definitely one of the top movies. My argument as to why you should see this movie is simple, who doesn’t want to see a cute little movie? That is a hypothetical question, because I know a lot of guys would be like I don’t want to, but trust me guys this movie is even for you.

            First reason you should see Frozen is because it’s the cutest little story ever! It’s an anime movie (which from experience I’ve noticed a lot of guys like Anime) so they should enjoy this anime movie too. The movie is completely centered on the princess Anna and the new to be Queen Elsa, and of course Kristoff the guy that goes on a journey with Anna.

            My experience with Frozen is that I got told my everyone to go see it and I’m like I’m not seeing some stupid dumb anime Disney movie, but was dragged to the movie by my friends (it was either Frozen or Saving Mr. Banks and I chose Frozen), so I went to the movies with two of my friends who both hadn’t seen the movies either and during the previews this hilarious Mickey Mouse scene came on and everyone in the movie theater was laughing. Anyway, the movie started and I was like great a musical movie because the beginning of the movie there was some singing going on. Well, needless to say, by the end of the movie I’m like why did I not see this earlier?   

            The ending to the movie was perfect because the song by Demi Lovato called Let it Go is an amazing song and fits perfectly with the movie. The reason people loved this movie so much was because of the comedy in it. I seriously have not laughed at a movie so much. It’s sad that a Disney movie is funnier than a legit comedy movie. But anyway I think that’s why people enjoyed it so much because I haven’t heard one person dis the movie at all. Even some guys I talked to love the movie, so guys and girls just go and watch it.  Trust in me that you’ll be laughing your booty off the whole time and will enjoy it.

            Frozen is the perfect amount of cute little love story and comedy to have both adults and kids absolutely love the movie. Who doesn’t love to laugh a lot? So if you can’t take my word for it or my friends words for it, go see the movie I guarantee you’ll at least laugh a bit.